Re: [tuning] Digest Number 1871

On 2/5/02 7:27 PM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Message: 16
> Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 20:54:09 -0000
> From: "paulerlich" <paul@stretch-music.com>
> Subject: Re: G Bv D
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
>
>> ****Hi Bob!
>>
>> Well, I might have thought that, too, but Paul Erlich has cited
> some
>> studies, I believe that show that even string players, for
> instance,
>> if left with no further instructions tend to play close to 12-tET...
>>
>> ??
>
> not only this, but you may recall that gerry eskelin, one of our
> country's top choral directors, was convinced that when singers 'lock
> in' a major triad, the major third is not just but is in fact *wider*
> than a 12-equal major third. after some time on this list, he ended
> up conceding that perhaps a *minority* of the top choral groups
> (including most of those that specialize in renaissance music) 'lock
> in' to a just intonation major triad, but that the *majority* use
> the 'high third' instead . . .

(Geeeez.... If I had seen this before sending my earlier posts I *could*
have kept me mouth shut. Damn! -- Jerry)

On 2/5/02 7:27 PM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>> From: "paulerlich" <paul@stretch-music.com>
>> Subject: Re: G Bv D
>>
>> ....plus, some of the best musicians i know
>> with perfect pitch simply can't hear beating, no matter how much time
>> i spend showing it to them and unbelieving that they're missing it.

Among new recruits to the LA Jazz Choir workshop (years ago now), the
so-called perfect pitch singers were the last to catch on to 'acoustic'
tuning. None ever failed to achieve it, however. It just seemed to take time
for them to get used to listening for something other than frequencies (or
whatever it is they listen to).

Also, it probably was a bit demeaning not to be the singer everyone else in
the group depended on for 'truth.'

Gerald Eskelin

On 2/5/02 7:27 PM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 13:45:58 -0000
> From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> Subject: Re: G Bv D
>
> --- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_33649.html#33687
>
>> I guess the issue that concerns me is that I believe that
>> current players of non-fixed-pitch instruments (including those that
>> are fixed but dynamically tuneable like woodwinds) when faced with
>> G B D are probably going to attempt to make it sound "in tune". I
>> would also conject (and believe I hear this in recordings) that this
>> is to make it somewhat beat-free (or at least the center pitches
>> if vibrato is being applied). Of course, this may change depending
>> on if it is the I chord at a point of repose, or some other chord
>> at a point of tension.
>>
>
> ****Hi Bob!
>
> Well, I might have thought that, too, but Paul Erlich has cited some
> studies, I believe that show that even string players, for instance,
> if left with no further instructions tend to play close to 12-tET...
>
> ??
>
> JP

I suppose we hear what we want to hear, to some degree, but in my teaching
experience, string students tend to hear 'acoustically' more frequently than
others, perhaps because they practice by themselves with little or no
influence from keyboards. Singers, on the other hand, even though they have
the option of flexible tuning, tend not to hear 'acoustically,' likely
because they practice with a piano and depend on it to 'learn their notes.'

An interesting study I remember reading indicated that piano players were
the least likely to hear the difference between scales in various tunings
while string players were the most likely. Interesting.

I'd be very interested in checking out those studies, Paul (if it's not too
much trouble).

Gerald Eskelin

On 2/5/02 7:27 PM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Message: 7
> Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 16:01:16 +0000
> From: mark.gould@argonet.co.uk
> Subject: Notation
>
> I am looking at these alternate notations with interest. I remember a page or
> two of Ben Johnston's notation, the one with all the numbers for the prime
> harmonics etc, but it really made the page look busy. I suppose if you choose
> a scale without alteration (no accidentals) then modulation and other tones
> can be written using altered accidentals. But, how on earth would you notate a
> modulation to the key a comma below, like from C to c- (or however you'd
> notate a comma flat accdental). And thus repeating this modulation, would you
> end up having notes such as G---, and these being equal to some other note
> several commas sharp, or some other note.
>
> For a fixed set of notes, or fixed set of ratios (which implies a 1/1
> somewhere, the root of the whole scale), then that may be ok, just like, say
> notation in an ET. The trouble arises when you want to write string music with
> exactness. What I don't like is when the notation breaks down, and a perfectly
> nice interval get notated really horribly, just because there is a fixed
> notation. Certainly all of the fixed cycles of temperaments or ET scales
> suffer from this.
>
> Partch's ratios seem one way out, but they don't seem to convey pitch very
> well, and the use of diesis like half symbols is often misread by performers,
> or worse they think its a flyspeck and ignore it.
>
> I thin kthat notating a 4:5:6 on G as being G Bv D makes the third look flat,
> when we mean it to be just. True, we are altering it from its pythagorean
> position (ca.400cents), but surely the pythagorean position is the raised one?
>
> M

Not to bring up old stuff, Mark, but about a year ago we spend a few months
on the list searching for the "high third" preferred by many singers and
string players. We never found any mathematical support for it and finally
assumed it to be a stylistic preference. The one thing we did agree on (I
believe) is that it was *not* the pythagorean third.

(See, Paul. I told you I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut for long.)

Gerald Eskelin

--- In tuning@y..., <stg3music@e...> wrote:

> I'd be very interested in checking out those studies, Paul (if it's
not too
> much trouble).

spent hours in the new york performing arts library reading these.
don't have any references handy, but i'm sure you yourself can easily
hear that a great many classical string ensembles are relatively
uninterested in bending their major triads away from 12-equal and
towards 4:5:6 . . .